The Beginning of Play

We often get asked by our fans and clients about how The Play Studio came into existence so we thought it’ll be a good idea to share the experience with you all, after all, everything was documented through our Facebook page.

It was the cold winter of December 2011 in London when we first had the brainwave to start our very own creative agency and ever since then the ideas kept on springing out.

At the time of forming Play, the key members were Mehedi, Umar, Ali and Shams. We all shared the same vision of building something of our own and we knew exactly what services we want to provide to our clients but we didn’t have a name. We thought about using the name that we used to go by back in college when we did a bit of freelancing, iGraphic, but that couldn’t work since Apple was using it for all their iProducts.

We came up with various keywords and then researched names to see if an existing business or domain already had that name, then finally came up with The Play Studio or “Play”. It’s fun yet professional and catchy enough for everyone to remember.

After that came the most challenging part – leaving secure jobs and taking a financial risk at the time when recession was at it’s peak.

The thought of starting a business when high street brands were shutting down (Woolworths, JJB Sports, HMV and Blockbuster etc) was scary and it did cross our minds but if we didn’t take the plunge then I don’t think we would have ever started this brilliant agency. Soon after we found a little place to rent in East London, it wasn’t the best but professional enough for clients.

Since launch, the team has grown from strength to strength, even though the all the original members are not there, attracting big names and has worked with over 50 clients in our first year alone and moved to 3 different studios.